Carnegie Hall Announces 2006-7 Musical Offerings: Collaboration,
Innovation, and Access are Themes
By Emily Sherwood, Ph.D.
Quoting former President Teddy Roosevelt,
Carnegie Hall’s
executive and artistic director Clive Gillinson announced at
a standing room only press conference recently that, in planning
the venerable institution’s 2006-7 musical season, “we
kept our eyes on the stars and our feet on the ground.” Carnegie
Hall will continue to build on its longstanding commitment
to “imaginative, strategic, and rigorous” programming,
but, according to Mr. Gillinson, who began his Carnegie Hall
directorship in July 2005 following a 35 year career with the
London Symphony Orchestra where he began as a cellist and ended
as its Managing Director, “we must also play an active
role in the future of music.”
The diversity in Carnegie Hall’s 2006-7 programming
is evident in a dazzling mix of genres, from the Vienna Philharmonic
Orchestra to the Mongolian Buryat Band, from the Boston Symphony
Orchestra to Ladysmith Black Mambazo. But there’ll be
plenty of old favorites for the traditionalists. In a series
of eight Perpectives concerts, the Emerson String
Quartet will survey the complete Beethoven string quartets
and their central presence in the quartet literature. Covering
a span of more than 200 years, the concerts will also feature
works by Mendelssohn, Schubert, Ives, Bartok, and Shostakovich.
“Equally important to Carnegie Hall is extending
[our] tradition to the next generation, which includes ten
young composers in their 20’s and 30’s, most of
whom you will not yet know,” stated Mr. Gillinson. To
wit, composer Osvaldo Golijov and soprano Dawn Upshaw will
mentor eight young composers who will write new works for voice
and chamber ensemble. The world premiere concerts will take
place in the Weill Recital Hall.
In a collaboration with the Brooklyn
Academy of Music and Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall will present
a month long, citywide tribute to contemporary composer Steve
Reich on the occasion of his 70th birthday. Titled “Steve Reich at 70”,
the festival will showcase the diverse musical sources that
inspired Reich, including African, electronic, medieval and
Indian music, with a concert in Isaac Stern Auditorium to include
the new Daniel Variations (a musical memorial to the
late Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl) and Different
Trains (a haunting portrayal of the trains that transported
so many to their deaths in the Holocaust).
A new partnership with City Center, which will feature shared
music, dance, and drama programming to reap the benefits of
an expanded audience, will kick off in the 2008-9 season.
When asked what his individual stamp
on Carnegie Hall had been to date, Mr. Gillinson modestly
declined to do so, emphasizing instead the team effort of
the hall’s top managers. Key
to their collective vision is making the concerts accessible
to audiences who can’t afford the steep ticket prices
at Carnegie Hall. Current efforts include deeply discounted
subscription series for young adults in their twenties, a limited
number of $10 tickets for students and seniors for most performances,
free tickets for underserved groups, free neighborhood concerts,
and affordably priced family concerts. Student demand alone
has grown 200 percent since last year. “This is our future,” added
Mr. Gillinson. Similarly, the hall sends performing artists
into the city’s schools, although Mr. Gillinson admitted
that the program is not as robust as it might be. As for podcasting,
the ultimate technological tool for accessibility to the masses,
Mr. Gillinson noted that “it’s being developed….we’ve
made a commitment to it and explored ideas, but it’s
a ways away.”
In summarizing his goals for the
upcoming season, Mr. Gillinson repeatedly stressed that he
and his management team are encouraging audiences to travel
from their comfort zone and take more risks in their musical
appreciation. “Looking ahead, we will
continue to build on [our] historic strengths as we seek to
develop ever more creative and compelling musical journeys
for our audiences,” he concluded.#
